Date: Wednesday 26 June, 2024
Venue: Seminar Room at 2nd Floor, HuRetro Center

Mathias Lichterfeld, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Visiting Professor, Kumamoto University

Immune selection of HIV reservoir cells
Xu Yu, MD
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Elite controllers as a model for a cure of HIV-1 infection
Jun-Ichirou Yasunaga, MD, PhD
Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University

Coding and non-coding functions of HTLV-1 bZIP factor gene in T-cell oncogenesis
Yorifumi Satou, MD, PhD
Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto UniversityHIV-Tocky system to visualize proviral expression dynamics
Terumasa Ikeda, PhD
Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto University

Interaction between APOBEC3 family proteins and HIV-1 in myeloid cell line THP-1
Naofumi Takahashi, PhD
Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto University

Monocyte and macrophage subsets in persistent HIV-1 infection

Organized by Takamasa Ueno
Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto University
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Core-to-Core ProgramMathias Lichterfeld, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard
Visiting Professor, Kumamoto University

Personal Statement:
I am an M.D./Ph.D. and a practicing infectious disease physician who has been involved in
the investigation of HIV-1 disease pathogenesis for more than ten years. In addition to myclinical work that mostly focuses on care of HIV-1-infected patients, I maintain a translational
virology laboratory with three postdocs that focuses on exploring mechanisms of HIV-1
immune pathogenesis, on profiling HIV-1 reservoir cells, and on developing clinical strategies
for HIV eradication and cure. My activities have covered a broad spectrum of investigations
that reach from molecular and cellular immunology and virology to translational investigations
and interventional clinical trials. I have successfully led studies related to the identification of
specific subsets of cells that serve as long-term reservoirs for HIV-1, and my lab has been
instrumental in detecting immune pathways that restrict HIV-1 replication in patients withnatural control of HIV-1 and reduce residual viral reservoirs. A particular emphasis of my work
relates to the deep analysis of HIV-1 reservoir characteristics with a specific emphasis onusing novel technologies based on next-generation sequencing approaches, and toperforming early-stage pilot clinical trials related to HIV eradication and cure in adults andinfants.
Citations:
1. Armani-Tourret M, Gao C, Hartana CA, Sun W, Carrere L, Vela L, Hochroth A, Bellefroid
M, Sbrolla A, Shea K, Flynn T, Roseto I, Rassadkina Y, Lee C, Giguel F, Malhotra R,Bushman FD, Gandhi RT, Yu XG, Kuritzkes DR, Lichterfeld M. Selection of epigeneticallyprivileged HIV-1 proviruses during treatment with panobinostat and Interferon-a2a. Cell2024, 187:1238-1254
2. Lian X, Seiger KW, Parsons EM, Gao C, Sun W, Gladkov GT, Roseto IC, Einkauf KB,Osborn MR, Chevalier JM, Jiang CM, Blackmer J, Carrington M, Rosenberg ES,
Lederman M, McMahon D, Bosch RJ, Jacobson JM, Gandhi JM, Peluso M, Chun TW,Deeks SG, Yu XG, Lichterfeld M. Progressive transformation of the HIV-1 reservoir cell
profile towards deep latency over two decades of antiviral therapy. Cell Host & Microbe
2023; 31(1):83-96.e5.
3. Sun W, Gao C, Hartana CA, Osborn MR, Einkauf KB, Lian X, Bone B, Bonheur N, ChunTW, Rosenberg ES, Walker BD, Yu XG, Lichterfeld M. Phenotypic signatures of immune
selection in HIV-1 reservoir cells. Nature 2023; 614:309-317.
4. Einkauf KB, Osborn MR, Gao C, Sun W, Sun X, Lian X, Parsons EM, Gladkov G, SeigerKW, Blackmer J, Jiang C, Yukl S, Rosenberg ES, Yu XG, Lichterfeld M. Parallel analysisof transcription, integration and sequence of single HIV-1 proviruses. Cell 2022; 185:266282.
5. Shapiro RL, Ajibola G, Maswabi K, Hughes M, Nelson BS, Niesar A, Pretorius Holme M,Powis KM, Sakoi M, Batlang O, Moyo S, Mohammed T, Maphorisa C, Bennett K, Hu Z,Giguel F, Reeves JD, Reeves MA, Gao C, Yu X, Ackerman ME, McDermott A, Cooper
M, Caskey M, Gama L, Jean-Philippe P, Yin DE, Capparelli EV, Lockman S, Makhema
J, Kuritzkes DR, Lichterfeld M. Broadly neutralizing antibody treatment maintained HIV
suppression in children with favorable reservoir characteristics in Botswana. Sci Transl
Med. 2023; 15(703), eadh0004

Xu Yu, M.D.

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard

Personal Statement:
I have worked on viral immunology since the beginning of my scientific career 23 years ago.
Currently, my laboratory focuses on understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms
involved in viral immune control, with a focus on exploring cell-intrinsic immune defense
mechanisms and interplay between innate immune recognition and evolution of adaptive
immune responses. Over the recent years, I have made major contributions to understanding
the role of dendritic cells and their immunoregulatory functions for generating and fine-tuning
adaptive immune responses during viral infections, to the analysis of immune responses andcorrelates of immune protection against HIV-1 and Zika infections using systemsimmunology based approaches, and to the investigation of immunoregulatory circuits
influencing immune activation during HIV-1 infection. Since 2010, my laboratory has utilized
novel high-throughput omics technologies for the study of HIV-1 pathogenesis, including
gene microarrays, RNA-Seq, ATAC-Seq, ChIP-Seq and proteomics/phosphoproteomics
techniques. Recently, I have also pioneered the use of single-cell transcriptomics approaches
for identifying cellular immune defense mechanisms against viral infection, and for detecting
innate sensors of viral infections. Moreover, I combined my work as a basic science
immunologist with clinical and translational perspectives for improving clinical treatment
options for viral infectious disease.
Citations:
1. Jiang C, Lian L, Gao C, Sun X, Einkauf K, Chevalier JM, Chen S, Hua S, Rhee B, ChangK, Blackmer JE, Osborn M, Peluso MJ, Hoh R, Somsouk M, Milush J, Bertagnolli LN,Sweet S, Varriale J, Burbelo PD, Chun TW, Laird GM, Serrao E, Engelman AN,Carrington M, Siliciano RF, Siliciano J, Deeks SG, Walker BD, Lichterfeld M, Yu XG. A
unique viral reservoir landscape in HIV-1 elite controllers. Nature 2020. Named as oneof the 9 runners-up for Breakthrough of the Year 2020 by Science Magazine
2. Turk G*, Seiger K*,**, Lian X, Sun W, Parsons EM, Gao C, Rassadkina Y, Polo ML,Czernikier A, Ghiglione Y, Vellicce A, Varriale J, Lai J, Yuki Y, Martin M, Rhodes A,Lewin SR, Walker BD, Carrington M, Siliciano R, Siliciano J, Lichterfeld M*, Laufer N*,Yu XG*. A Possible Sterilizing Cure of HIV-1 Infection without Stem Cell Transplantation.
Annals of Internal Medicine. 2022. 175(1):95-100. Named as one of the mostinfluential articles in “Best of Annals 2021”.
3. Hartana CA, Rassadkina Y, Gao C, Martin-Gayo E, Walker BD, Lichterfeld M, Yu XG. A
lncRNA-dependent, enhanced functional metabolic state of myeloid dendritic cells fromHIV-1 elite controllers. J Clin. Invest. 2021 131(9):e146136.
4. Lian X**, Gao C, Sun X, Jiang C, Einkauf KB, Seiger KW, Chevalier JM, Yuki Y, Martin
M, Hoh R, Peluso MJ, Carrington M, Ruiz-Mateos E, Deeks SG, Rosenberg ES, Walker
BD, Lichterfeld M, Yu XG. Footprints of immune selection in intact and defective
proviruses from HIV-1 elite controllers. Sci. Transl. Med. 2021 13(624):eabl4097.
5. Sun X, Hua S, Gao C, Blackmer J, Ouyang Z, Ard K, Ciaranello A, Yawetz S, Sax PE,Rosenberg ES, Lichterfeld M, Yu XG*. Immune-profiling of ZIKV-infected patients
identifies a distinct function of plasmacytoid dendritic cells for immune cross-regulation.
Nat Comms. 2020. 11(1):2421